ug‧ly [uhg-lee] offensive to the sense of beauty; displeasing in appearance

the rooster and his white hens

by theuglyearring

The afternoon I wrote to you about the rooster and his hens we came back to the ranch to find them gone–the little white hens almost without a trace–and piles of rooster’s green and bronze and black feathers scattered everywhere. By searching carefully I found four white feathers a short distance from the house. The coyotes had come–at least four of them I think because otherwise the dogs could have protected rooster and his hens. Coyotes waste nothing and so it is as if the white hens were never here; the rooster, on the other hand, was always a strange creature. A number of times I would be talking to Denny and would feel as if we were not alone; when I looked out the open window I’d find the rooster listening outside like a being out of some Haitian voodoo story. Now when the wind blows I find feathers, every time thinking that surely now I am seeing them for the last time, but finding them again and again. What is remarkable though are the colors of the feathers, which remain undimmed, and the texture of the feathers, which is as glossy as if they had only just fallen from him; and all this after weeks of the feathers blowing around the ground in dust and rain.